Use People, Love Things, and Worship Yourself?

Occasionally I feel the need to indulge my inner nerd. That's when I go over to the American Enterprise Institute's website and check in to see what Arthur Brooks has to say. He's one of those guys who Richard Nixon would have described as a "pointy-headed intellectual." However, instead of  writing scathing denunciations of the West all day, he actually is a stout defender of free markets and free minds. Yesterday he wrote a rather long and ponderous piece entitled, Confessions of a Catholic Convert to Capitalism. In it, he asked several tough questions about his preferred economic system, and attempted answers. I will not go into the details of the thing here, but I want to tell you about a line which jumped off the page at me. In a discussion of the moral and spiritual failings of capitalism he said this...

" I have lain awake worrying about the coarsening materialism of our society and popular culture. Turn on the television, go to the movies, glance at practically any advertisement, and you will learn that the formula for a happy life is simple: use people, love things, and worship yourself."

Use people, love things, worship yourself...

He then asks the rhetorical question: Is Capitalism to blame? Because, although capitalism and free markets have created more wealth and indeed lifted more people out of grinding poverty than any system ever conceived by the mind of man, facts that are not in dispute, has it reduced us to merely agents of commerce, robotic money making and money chasing machines? His answer put forth in the essay is essentially, "No." capitalism, as an economic system is amoral, and is only as good and righteous as the people participating in it. I agree. But, I would add something else. Capitalism, by itself, is insufficient for the happiness and betterment of mankind. It does tend to reduce us to material beings. To get ahead requires a certain ruthlessness of character at times. Without a moral component, economic well being as a goal does indeed encourage and reward...using people, loving things, and worshiping ourselves.

To advance to a place where our life goals are to love people, use things, and worship God is a far more difficult challenge, and more vital for the happiness and betterment of mankind. For me, this is where faith steps in to the picture, since it reorients my mind from it's default position of self-interest to the interests of others, the life of Christ being a case study in learning to love others,  with his haunting challenge, " What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

So, yes. . .I am a capitalist and thankful for its blessings. But I am also humble enough to understand it's limitations.

My Day On The Links

After a long morning which involved my assistant redoing a pile of paperwork which I had screwed up, I grabbed a quick lunch then headed to Sycamore Creek for a round of golf. My goal was three fold, to enjoy a rare 70 degree February day by spending it outside, to walk 18 holes while carrying my clubs, and not to stink up the place by shooting 100.

I was paired up with a 67 year old, newly retired man named Ken. He had spent 40 years teaching middle schoolers in Powhatan county. I felt like I should have been carrying his clubs too! 40 years teaching middle schoolers? Are you Freaking kidding me?? We enjoyed lively conversation over the next four hours and very much enjoyed each other's company, although I must say, the man was certainly no fan of Democrats. Whenever he would offer a treatise on how Democrats were responsible for everything from the Trilateral Commission to slow lines at the grocery store, I would change the subject..."So, how 'bout those Patriots?"

I accomplished goal number one with ease. I hadn't been outside for four hours in probably three months and I was feeling the effects. The worst part about winter for me has always been having to spend so much time indoors. It was a glorious day. I actually wore short sleeves, and even got a bit of a tan.

I accomplished goal number two...barely. I can't remember the last time I have walked 18 holes and carried my clubs. I've used a pull cart many times, but carrying one's own clubs is usually reserved for teenage boys and caddies. But, I was determined. I turned on the gps device on my cell phone to track how far of a walk I was about to take, then silenced it and zipped it up in my bag. The first nine holes were surprisingly easy. I congratulated myself on being in such fine physical shape. Then the back nine arrived and promptly added fifty pounds to the weight of my bag. I began to feel the burn in my thighs and calves. By hole number 14, my feet began to ache. Ken, who was riding alone in his cart sensed that I was slowing down and began constantly asking if I needed a lift. I refused his kind offers each time out of pure stubbornness and hubris. When I walked off the 18th green everything I had was stiff and sore and I was worn out, but I made it, a four hour, 4.28 mile march.

Goal number three was the most surprising. As is my custom, I didn't hit any balls to warm up, just walked out to the first tee and let it rip. I had determined that I would take no mulligans, and hit each ball where it lay, despite the somewhat soggy, winter conditions. I mean, why not, right? I'm not totally sure but I think the last time I had played was in Maine back in July of last year. So, to my considerable delight, I hit the ball great, only lost one ball all day, and shot a very respectable 85. This despite the fact that I continued my 30 year run of being the worst putter in all of Christendom. Trying to explain just how bad a putter I am isn't easy. It's an acquired incompetence. Imagine someone trying to putt while intoxicated and suffering an epileptic seizure. Or maybe, think of trying to putt with a push broom while blindfolded.

So, this morning my shoulders feel like I've spent a week carrying Lena Dunham around in a backpack. But the good news is...I lost three pounds!!

Beware the Mild Winter Head Fake

So far, this has been the type of winter that makes me nervous. Except for that one snowstorm a month ago, we have had an easy time of it. Today it's supposed to reach the 70's. By and large, we've enjoyed 50's over 30's all winter. So, I'm nervous that we're all being tricked into thinking that winter is done. Mother Nature is giving us a huge head fake, and we're all going for it. Just about the time we all are rummaging through our closets looking for the short sleeve shirts, we're going to get hammered by some 18 inch snowstorm and a week of single digit temperatures! I can feel it.

Nevertheless, this afternoon will be 70 degrees and sunny, and I have no appointments on the calendar, the first such day of the year. I'm feeling the call of the little white ball. It's been probably six or seven months since last I played. Getting outside in 70 degree weather and walking around for four hours sounds fabulous to me at the moment.

Speaking of nice weather. . .I will be attending a business meeting the third week of March down in Florida. It's two days of boring business meetings, the kind of trip I have made a habit of missing whenever possible. But this year, there are actually important things that will be discussed, things I need to hear, so I'm going. I thought that I would take Pam with me and maybe stay a couple extra days in the sun at a very nice resort hotel called Coconut Point, near Fort Myers.

https://coconutpoint.regency.hyatt.com/en/hotel/home.html

Then yesterday I made the happy discovery that the Boston Redsox spring training facility is only 20 miles from the hotel, and as fate would have it, they have a game scheduled against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday the 24th!! This is what is known as a divine appointment. A mere ten days before my 59th birthday, I'm finally going to attend my first spring training baseball game! I'm going to eat an overpriced hotdog, drink a couple of overpriced beers and bore Pam to death with baseball talk for an afternoon in the warm Florida sun. This fortuitous turn of events has made me positively giddy with anticipation...which brings me back to this head fake business. If we get some freak late winter Nor'easter the third week of March which foils my travel plans, I'm going to be one angry, bitter man. It might even force me into the streets to join "the resistance."

Eh...probably not.

Greatness

My days of caring deeply about the NFL are long gone, but there I was last night, sitting down to a feast of nachos, and buffalo chicken sliders, to watch the game. I'm an American. It's what we do.

The Super Bowl is more than just a game. It's more like an event. There's the game itself, which more often than not is a blowout, but there's also the commercials and the halftime show. Oh yeah, there's also the tense, hold your breath moment right before the game when the latest greatest pop icon massacres the national anthem. This time however, country heartthrob, Luke Bryan did a passable job except for the fact that it was way too slow.

I haven't read any reviews of the night's commercials yet, but from where I sat, I believe it safe to say that America has officially lost its sense of humor. Worst. Commercials. Ever. Even the beer commercials weren't funny. Budweiser offered a morality tale about immigration, with young Aldophus Busch sloughing his way across this hateful, venom-spewing country, to St. Louis, where he could get busy building his brewery into a money-printing monolith. Bud Lite literally resurrected Spuds Mackenzie (who knew he was dead?) in a particularly unfunny minute long offering. There seemed to be an awful lot of commercials for movies. I made a mental note to not go to see any of them.

As far as the actual game goes, it was the New England Patriots vs. the Atlanta Falcons. The Patriots are so easy to hate. They seem to always play in the Super Bowl for one thing, and although everyone loves a winner, everybody hates a winner who wins too much. Ask Tiger Woods, Jimmy Johnson, and the New York Yankees. With great success comes great animosity. With New England, there's their grumbling, fashion challenged head coach, Bill Belichick, who possesses all of the charisma of a loaf of stale bread. There's the club's owner, Robert Craft, wealthy beyond all reason, who made his bones by buying the worst electric razor company in the history of civilization, and parlaying that into a global conglomerate. Of course, with all the cheating allegations, especially Deflategate, the Patriots have turned into the team everyone loves to hate.

Then there's Tom Brady, he of the matinee idol good looks, gorgeously hot model-wife, and collection of Super Bowl rings. He's the guy every other guy wants to be and every woman wants to be with. What's not to hate? After last night, the answer is...nothing.

With his team down by 25 points halfway through the third quarter, Brady-haters were having a field day. Meanwhile, on the field, number 12 looked unfazed. So, what does he do? Of course, he does what nobody else had ever done. . . rally his team back from an insurmountable deficit to win his fifth Super Bowl and fourth Super Bowl MVP. Deflate THIS.

I may not be a Patriot fan or a Tom Brady fan for that matter, but I am a fan of greatness, and I know it when I see it. Tom Brady is simply the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. I kinda knew it before last night. But after last night, the only people alive who don't know it are the unrepentant haters.

Well, yeah. . .there's that thing with Bridget Moynihan when he left her for Gisele while she was pregnant with his child, but this is America, the land of flawed heros. We can forgive an awful lot for a tight spiral. And nobody throws them better than Tom freaking Brady.

My Nephew. So Much Work To Do!

Ryan is the only son of my sister Paula and her husband Ron. As such he is my nephew, and a fine young man he is, educated, gainfully employed, handsome, and possessing the fine quality of manners so missing in many of his contemporaries.

He was raised by three parents. . .his mother and father, and ESPN's Sports Center. As such, he fancies himself an expert on all things sports related. In many ways this is true. He can rattle off every insignificant factoid about the inconsequential NBA and NFL you could ever possibly want to know. But, his greatest area of expertise is in the world wide scourge known as soccer. Ryan is a walking, and unfortunately talking, soccer encyclopedia. It's too late for me to undo that damage, soccer being a rapidly progressive disease with no known cure. However, there is a glimmer of hope in the kid. Recently, he has shown a nascent interest in baseball!!

Of course, I have jumped all over this ray of hope in the kid's development. He has picked a team to root for, the Washington Nationals, which happens to be my national league team. Hopefully, I can guide his baseball enthusiasm away from the Yankees, who he only likes because, well...because Yankees evil has spread throughout the fruited plain like a Bibilical curse, and young skulls full of mush are basically powerless against its influence. But, I'm hoping that with persistent education and guidance I will eventually break the grip that the dark side currently has on his mind.

Just to let you all know what I'm up against in this battle of overcoming baseball ignorance, earlier today he sent me a clip on Facebook of Vin Scully reciting the famous "..if you build it, they will come" speech from Field of Dreams. So far, so good. The fact that he too was moved by that sacred text is cause for celebration. But then he added, in typically Ryanian fashion, the flat statement..."best sports movie ever."

Poor kid. I have so much work to do with this one. My reply was rather direct..."Umm, it's only the second best baseball movie ever made!" I then explained that the best baseball movie ever made, as everyone knows, was Bull Durham, to which he responded, "never seen it."

So, much work to do. But I am psyched for the job.

Lucy's Bone Adventure

I am a Christian, and as such, I have never believed in reincarnation. But, after living for two years with Lucy, I'm starting to have my doubts. Maybe the reason why she doesn't act like your standard issue, garden variety Golden Retriever is because she's actually the reincarnation of a teenaged girl from Iowa who died tragically during a shock therapy session gone bad at the State mental hospital in Des Moines. How else to explain the endless variety of quirks? The latest might just be the most bizarre ever...

A couple of weeks ago, Pam came home from the grocery store with a special treat for Lucy. It was her first real bone, and it was a beauty. I mean, this thing was amazing, with dried chunks of real meat hanging off the thing. Both of us hyped this bone to Lucy like it was the greatest thing a dog could ever be given. When we finally gave it to her she went full One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest crazy.

First of all, if I had given any of my previous Golden's such a fine bone they would have immediately sequestered themselves in a corner of the house and spent the next several hours chewing and gnawing away in Canine bliss. Heck, if I had given this bone to Kaitlin's dog, Jackson, he would have turned that thing into a fine powdery mist within an hour. Not our Lucy. No, no, there would be no feast. She picked it up as gingerly as a jeweler would pick up the Hope diamond. Then she walked around the house growling and whining, with the bone hanging from her mouth. After several minutes of this strangeness, she walked over to the back door and sat the bone down on the middle of a towel we had placed on the floor to dry her feet off when she comes in from a trip into the backyard. Then she began pushing the towel around with her nose until the bone was completely covered and hidden. I laughed at her and immediately rescued the bone and began explaining to Lucy the fact that for centuries, these types of bones have been considered haute cuisine by her ancestors. This was nothing to be afraid of...it was for eating. The poor girl looked at me as if I had two heads.

For the next couple of days we would find the bone covered in towels. One night she brought it into bed with us and began trying to bury it under the covers at 3:00 am! We have since found it in a variety of random places, and until recently she had never, as far as we could tell, taken one single bite out of the thing. Finally, a few days ago we noticed that one end of it had been gnawed down an inch or so. Immediately, she began scratching herself for the first time ever. Pam has made the snap diagnosis that she is allergic to the bone, so the bone has been dispatched from our home. Lucy doesn't seem to miss it.

Hidden Figures. A Review.

Went to see Hidden Figures last night, a rare Wednesday date night. Cinebistro was in fine form. The shrimp mac and cheese was exquisite. The movie was terrific. On the way out I was able to grab not one, not two, but three of those delicious chocolate-mint gumdrop things. A killer night!

Hidden Figures, as you know, is about three African-American women who worked at NASA in Langley during the early 60's when this nation was trying to catch up with the Soviet Union's space program. This was before the Civil Rights battles, where Jim Crow segregation was the law of the land. These three ladies possessed brilliant mathematical minds, but toiled away in relative obscurity in a colored section of the complex, until fate intervened and brought all three to prominence. Neccesity being the mother of invention, the brightest and best minds had to be employed, regardless of skin color, so in the merit based environment of NASA, the cream eventually rose to the top. These three women had to overcome not only their race but their gender as well, making them all the more remarkable.

Watching what life was like in 1961 Virginia was difficult. The most excruciating part of the movie was the part where Katherine Johnson's character, played beautifully by Taraji Henson, was forced to run across the Langley campus half a mile twice a day, arms full of her work, through all kinds of weather....to go to the bathroom, since that's where the closest colored bathroom was. She did so every day, suffering this absurdity in stoic silence until finally, when confronted with her slacking forty minute breaks by her boss, launches into an impassioned defense of herself which brought tears to my eyes. When the boss, played surprisingly well by Kevin Costner, silently walks over to the coffee table and rips the colored sticker someone had placed on a small coffee pot provided especially for Ms. Johnson, you could have heard a pin drop in the universe.

The part of the movie which moved me the most though was the sense of national purpose woven throughout the country by the space program. Everyone, was invested in its success, it seemed. Although segregated, groups of whites and blacks gathered outside of store fronts watching the blast off of Friendship Seven on televisions displayed in the windows. Living rooms in black and white homes were packed with people praying and holding their breath as rockets either lifted off successfully, or crashed to the ground in a terrifying fireball. It's hard to imagine anything today having the power to unite us as a people like that. It was both inspiring and sad to ponder just how divided we have become.

It was also inspiring to see that Hollywood still has it within itself to produce uplifting and heroic films. Bravo!